The Beijing massacre and the purge that has followed in its wake,
along with the solemn discussions among exiled groups about
China's future, have clouded much of the excitement and absurdity
of the events of the fifty days of protest leading up to 3 June.
Here I record the events in Beijing as I experienced them, and
attempt to capture something of the heady atmosphere of those
days (and nights).

* * *

I had arrived in Beijing on 7 May. The protesters, exhausted
by several weeks of marches from the university campuses in
Haidian, the northwest outer suburb of the city, had just begun
to stage 'bicycle marches'. Holding their school banners and
slogans aloft, they circled Beijing on the inner and outer
ringroads. These bicycle parades seemed innovative at first, but
they soon tired commuters and anyone else trying to get around
the city on business. Repeatedly in the weeks to come, the
student protesters would turn to ever new tactics to keep the
movement going.

* * *

Late in the evening of 8 May, I had a chance to talk at length
with Hou Dejian, the Taiwan-born singer/songwriter, and Liu
Xiaobo, an acerbic literary critic, writer of philosophy and
admirer of Nietzsche. During the massacre of 4 June, these two
men would attempt to lead the thousands of young people who were
gathered in Tiananmen Square, and would negotiate their
last-minute departure. But on that evening of 8 May, as Hou
ferried us to his favourite Mongolian hotpot restaurant in his
pajett red Mercedes, their attitudes revealed little of their
future involvement in the movement. Liu Xiaobo had rushed back to
Beijing from New York to get involved with the demonstrations and
he told me he was spending much of his time working on a public
opinion survey related to the student movement. Hou Dejian was
dismissive of the student agitation and thought it would lead to
no good. Liu Xiaobo was hardly more hopeful, but his close
involvement with the students made him less cynical.

At a writers' demonstration on Wednesday 10 May, the main
demonstrators were from the Beijing University writers' program.
The writers had draped ribbons across their chests like
contestants in a beauty pageant and had written on them their
names and most famous works. Su Xiaokang wore one with 'River
Elegy' marked on it, and Lao Gui wore an advertisement for his
novel
Bloody Sunset
. The novelist Zheng Yi had 'Old Well' written on his sash. It
was not just the writers who resorted to self-advertisement.
Student leaders wrote their names boldly on their shirts and were
ferried around the square and to other venues by bodyguards.

There were strong hierarchical aspects to the demonstrations as
well. Some of the writers had vied for pride of place at the head
of the procession as though they were natural leaders: as if
their presence added weight and importance to the occasion.
Similarly the students from different universities had jockeyed
for position as leaders in the mass marches into the city.
Beijing University was particularly unpopular with students from
other institutions for the air of superiority its student leaders
displayed.

One Chinese observer of the 27 April demonstration had watched
the disciplined students leading the procession, and noted also a
group of ill-kempt young people dressed in the casual garb of
Beijing's arty bohemians bringing up the rear. They did not march
in columns or hold any placards with quotations from the Chinese
Constitution on them; nor did they chant the set slogans of the
other demonstrators or sing the 'proper' songs (such as 'The
Internationale'). Instead they joined in loose formation, singing
pop songs. They were students from the Beijing Film Academy and
the Central Art Academy. The organizers remonstrated with them,
telling them that if they wanted to participate they had to line
up, chant the right slogans and sing the right songs. Uniformity
was required of these disorderly elements if they were to be
allowed to participate in the 'army of democracy' marching to
Tiananmen Square.

* * *

On Saturday, 13 May, the first night of the hunger strike, one
could only see the dark camp of students at the foot of the
Monument to the People's Heroes. A large banner reading 'hunger
strike' (
jueshi
) had been strung between the flagpoles. The weather was warm and
crowds were already gathering to visit the latest 'sight' (
jing
) on the itinerary of the Protest Movement tourist. An essential
element of the popular interest in the protests was the chance to
kan rennao
, or to 'enjoy a spectacle'. That particular predilection of
Beijing people had generally been left unsatisfied since the
grand parade was held for the thirty-fifth anniversary of the
People's Republic in 1984.

On Sunday 14 May, the
People's Daily
reported that Zhao Ziyang had met with some workers in the Great
Hall of the People the previous day. The front page article
included indirect quotations from Zhao to the effect that no
patriotic Chinese should do anything to interfere with the
Gorbachev visit or to embarrass the Chinese government. Zhao is
reported as having said, '... it doesn't matter who it is, be
they students or other citizens, if they interfere with this
international meeting because of dissatisfaction with their own
unit or internal problems... it will be entirely unreasonable,
and they will find no sympathy or support from others'. (1) The
thrust of Zhao's comments was obviously directed at the students,
as well as the workers, whom the government hoped would not
support the hunger strikers. This was, at least, how many people
interpreted the news that day, and the reactions I heard among
Chinese friends were of mild anger and dismissive of Zhao's ploy.
It should be remembered that Zhao Ziyang, whose image was
transmogrified and beatified by subsequent developments, was
perceived by many at this time as personifying the nepotism and
corruption against which people were protesting.

By late in the day, a story was being spread that towards the end
of Zhao's meeting with the workers someone had shouted out that
the state should sell off its Mercedes Benzes to pay the national
debt. This became a slogan written on banners in the
demonstrations that were to follow (
mai Benchi, huan guozhai
).

I spent most of the evening on the square or at Zhang Langlang's
courtyard house near Tiananmen. Zhang Langlang, the son of a
Yan'an period artist, is an essayist who writes for the Hong Kong
press, in particular
The Nineties Monthly
, a journal repeatedly attacked by the Chinese authorities.
During the movement, this conveniently placed courtyard became a
way station for government negotiators heading for the square,
student leaders, intellectual organizers, Hong Kong activists,
Chinese and Western correspondents, and casual observers. (2) It
was an ideal spot to spend time after a stroll out to the square,
and those present, regardless of the hour, day or night, would
exchange the latest gossip as they drank tea and nibbled on
biscuits. After the massacre, Langlang wrote that Li Ximing,
Beijing's Party secretary, had officially dubbed the house as
having been a 'black stronghold' (
hei judian
) during the protest movement. (3)

The evening of 14 May was a fretful one. Gorbachev was arriving
in the capital the following day and the Ministry of Public
Security had announced that the square would be closed to the
public for the Soviet leader's arrival. Many believed that the
square would have to be cleared before then.

That night was the first time I experienced the 'magnetic pull'
of the square. Being in Beijing it was impossible to stay away
from it. On that Sunday night there was both a real fear of what
could happen if the authorities moved on the students yet an
irresistible fascination with the unfolding drama and a desire to
either witness it or even just be there. To establish one's own
physical presence in the square, an area filled with uneasy
milling crowds, became a driving emotion. The massive open area
actually felt like the 'stage of history' (
lishide wutai
), an expression used so often in Party propaganda. It was a
tantalizing and disturbing phenomenon that, I believe, existed in
and around the square right up to the morning of 4 June. For
those three weeks people would gather there at all hours of the
day or night to express solidarity, or just watching and waiting,
not wishing to miss anything but unsure of just what it was that
they expected to happen. Even late at night, people would be
attracted to the vast open space, filled now with
hunger-strikers, screeching ambulances, pedlars, piles of
garbage, and weary onlookers anxious for, yet fearful of
government action.

The atmosphere on the square alternated between extreme tension,
with wild doomsayers running about with the latest rumours, and a
carnival feeling which the hint of government violence made all
the more exciting. There were carts with portable flat hotplates
at various points in and around the square and vendors were
cooking and selling
jianbing
cr&ecircpes as an evening snack. Crowds tried to get a peek
at the students on the hunger strike, and packed around
demagogues who would emerge from the crowd, attract a group for a
while, rail about this or that (the speeches I heard were
uniformly uninspiring and vacuous) and then, losing the interest
of their audience, find themselves sinking once more into the
obscurity of the swirling crowd.

Orderly lines of soldiers were seated outside the Great Hall of
the People. At times they were taunted by onlookers, but students
would intercede and lead groups trying to get the soldiers to
sing together with them (
hechang
), or would sing songs aimed against the soldiers (
duichang
). This was a technique familiar from the Cultural Revolution,
when groups would sing alternately, trying to compete with the
power of their voices.

The most common song was the dolorous 'The Internationale'.
Student demonstrators said they liked this song because sung in
chorus it resonated with majestic tragedy. One hunger-striker who
later witnessed the massacre told me that he and his friends had
even fantasized about standing in lines, arms linked and singing
'The Internationale' in peaceful protest against authoritarianism
as they were gunned down by government forces. These heroic
images, I was told by protesters in the square, were inspired in
part by the bas-relief sculptures on the sides of the Monument to
the People's Heroes which the strikers were facing as they sung,
and in part influenced by films and novels about pre-1949 KMT
oppression.

The Chinese anthem was also sung, but the most popular songs with
'the masses' (non-students) were 'We Workers are Powerful', a
stirring and chauvinistic old favourite; 'The Guerillas' Song',
later used, according to one friend, as the rallying cry of the
worker's 'dare to die squad'; and even 'I Love Tiananmen in
Beijing'. The Young Pioneer song known to most from their
childhood with its line 'We know that we will be the masters in
the future' was also a favourite, as was the tune of
'Fr&egravere Jacques', which was eventually given new lyrics
after the declaration of martial law: 'Down with Li Peng, down
with Li Peng, Deng Xiaoping, Deng Xiaoping. There's another
hoodlum (
liumang
), there's another hoodlum, Yang Shangkun, Yang Shangkun'. (4)

Chinese friends suggested that these were the only songs everyone
knew -when young people sang songs by the popular young singer
Cui Jian few middle-aged or older people could join in. But this
being a movement inspired by young people, nearly all of Cui's
songs were sung by the hunger strikers and broadcast on the
student public address system, as was the Taiwan songwriter Luo
Dayou's 'Orphans of Asia' and Qi Qin's 'Probably in Winter'.

During the day of 14 May, I had heard that some intellectual
leaders had met with Hu Qili, and we subsequently read a report
of it in the
People's Daily
. (5) After this meeting with Hu Qili, Dai Qing, a well-known
journalist and writer of controversial 'historical reportage',
was adamant in conversation that the students should leave the
square and not become pawns in an internal Party struggle. She
was frantically trying a new tactic in her efforts to mediate (
woxuan
) (6) between the students and the government. Dai Qing is the
adopted daughter of Marshal Ye Jianying and as such has always
been a member of the Party elite. It is a position that has both
allowed her a rare insight into the inner workings of the Party
and equipped her with a self-confidence and understanding of
China's political realities that made her 'historical reportage'
on Chinese intellectuals and her journalism some of the most
striking writing in the 1980s. (7) She was already convinced in
mid-May that a disaster awaited the students and their
supporters, and I presume that given her connections with the
upper echelon of the Party she was privy to the fact that a
declaration of martial law was being planned. (8)

* * *

On 15 May, I waited with friends in Jianguomen hoping to see
what would happen to Gorbachev's motorcade as it drove into
central Beijing from the airport. (9) As the previous evening had
passed without event, and with Gorbachev present in Beijing
people knew that it would now be safe to go to the square.
Throughout the morning students coming from the east marched past
us in ranks and were cheered by truckloads of protesters riding
to the square to support the hunger strikers. We ourselves set
off by taxi to catch the start of the first major protest march
of the intellectuals. Just to the east of the square the crowds
were so thick that there was just enough room for one lane of
traffic to move in either direction on the multi-laned road.
Lines of police who were stationed along the road as though
waiting for the official motorcade were being swamped by crowds
there to 'welcome' the Soviet leader.

Our car was stopped by the mass of people near Tiananmen. Some
asked where Gorbachev was and where we were going. Others started
beating the bonnet, and the driver, becoming nervous, ordered us
to wind up the windows as he edged forward through what was very
quickly becoming a tight corridor of human bodies. Most people
reacted to the rather odd situation with the usual mixture of
curiosity and good humour; others appeared positively malevolent.
The police made little effort to keep order and the lines of
policemen did not move. They were unwilling to maintain order,
whether by personal inclination or explicit orders from above was
unclear. By the following day, though, it was obvious to even
casual observers that the municipal government had ordered
traffic police withdrawn from the centre of the city, in what
seemed a deliberate effort to show that the demonstrators were
bringing disorder to the city.

We got out of the car at Fuxingmen Overpass, where a number of
friends had gathered to march in the intellectuals'
demonstration. It was quite a shambles, and started late with
much fussing over the order of marchers. A line of prominent
figures took the lead. I walked alongside the procession, which
moved forward under a banner reading 'The Intellectual Circles of
China' (
Zhongguo zhishijie
). Some marchers wore their names on sashes across their clothes
for easy identification. The Chinese press reported Yan Jiaqi,
Bao Zunxin, Ke Yunlu (a 'reformist' novelist later detained by
the police although reportedly released later) and Wang Luxiang
(co-author of 'River Elegy') were leading the demonstration. (10)
Apart from the famous names, a number of major cultural journals
and organizations were represented, including editors from some
of the most prestigious magazines in the city. For many, it
became a game of spotting which organizations had fielded a
group, who was participating from various units, and then craning
to glimpse the most amusing banners. After the tension of the
previous night and morning, the atmosphere yet again was like a
carnival. Workers on the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Hall building
site on the northeast corner of Fuxingmen waved and cheered as
the march set out. Apart from the leaders, who were very
stern-faced and solemn, those behind chatted and laughed,
enjoying what looked like an organized spring outing.

This day, for the first time I noticed a banner reading 'Citizens
Support Group' (
shimin shengyuantuan
), carried by a small group of rowdy youths who called on
onlookers to join them as they paraded around the square. The
next day one of the banners of such a group read: 'Knives and
halberds won't penetrate us, nor electric batons shock us' (
daoqiang bu ru, diangun bu chu
), a modernized version of the Boxers' saying. (11) The use of
the word 'civilians' (
shimin
) struck me because the students, both leaders and non-leaders,
still referred to popular supporters as 'the masses' (
qunzhong
) or 'the common people' (
laobaixing
) until 20 May, after which the nomenclature swung in favour of
that word 'civilians'. It is impossible to say whether this was a
spontaneous development arising from a new perception of the
residents of Beijing after they swamped the streets of the city
to keep the army out, or if the change in terminology originated
with the students' advisers.

It is noteworthy that the Chinese media, surprisingly objective
in its reporting of the demonstrations until then, began to
positively support the students. This 'press revolt' was so
unified in its style and purpose as to bespeak manipulation from
the very start. Subsequently, in his official report to the
National People's Congress in late June, Beijing Mayor Chen
Xitong identified Zhao Ziyang's comments to China's propaganda
chiefs Hu Qili and Rui Xingwen on 6 May regarding media coverage
of the demonstrations as crucial to the buildup of the protest
movement. (12)

From Monday, 15 May, the media began to print petitions addressed
both to the government and the students. This new wave of
petitions - the first one having been set off by Fang Lizhi's
January letter to Deng Xiaoping calling for an amnesty for
political prisoners (13) - continued to swell for the rest of the
week. During the hunger strike petitions appealing for dialogue,
restraint, rationalism, calls in support of the students' demands
and so on, were issued by groups, by work units and by just about
anyone who was asked or who had the idea. Many people signed
whatever appeals came their way; certain individuals I know in
the cultural world took considerable pride in their high
'signature count'. Others occupied themselves with collecting
signatures for appeals, the wording of which was carefully worked
out so as to conform with the requirements of the moment, satisfy
the students and outdo all the other petitions. Reading the
published and circulated petitions day by day you could see this
one-upmanship at work.

The hobby of collecting famous people's autographs had become
fashionable in China during the late 1980s. Book-signings by
writers had been popular, and film stars had been besieged by
fans asking for autographs. In a similar vein, during the
hunger-strike week and the first weeks of martial law students
collected each others' signatures and those of foreigners. (14)
Some didn't just ask for signatures, they became obsessed
autograph hounds. In the past, I am told, people have discussed
this phenomenon in China as an example of the 'affirmation of the
individual' (
rende faxian
), something of a craze in 1980s' China, and it certainly had
this vapid, self-affirming dimension to it. What surprised many
Chinese, foreign observers and people sympathetic with the
students was that when government leaders went to visit some of
the hunger strikers in hospital on the morning of Thursday, 17
May, many of the students actually sat up and asked for Zhao
Ziyang and Li Peng's autographs. Was this a form of insurance
policy, or an example of the 'cult of the powerful'? Perhaps they
only wanted to have proof that they had met with one of the
leaders and saw a signature as a 'sign' of approval or at least
recognition of their sacrifice.

Apart from the signatures and appeals, with each passing day more
organizations in the city sent representatives in batches into
the square to make their support for the students heard. Each
group, whether on foot, in trucks, buses or cars, would carry
some identifying banner, its own 'signature', and its distinctive
slogans. Like the floats in a parade, each one tried to be
different. As groups passed there might be approving cries from
the crowd or applause, the volume of the response reflecting the
popularity of the unit and/or its slogans. Sometimes it was an
expression of surprise. For example, when early in the week a
delegation from the Central Party School marched into the square
with its huge banner, which was set up high on the Monument to
the People's Heroes, there was thunderous acclamation. Again, on
the weekend following the declaration of martial law, when
marchers representing central government ministries marched
crying out the slogan 'Li Peng is a stupid XX!' (
Li Peng shabi!
), there was unrestrained delight.

Students had reportedly begun fainting from hunger and
dehydration on the Sunday. By Monday this was becoming a central
feature of life on the square. At first they were treated in
tents in the square by volunteer medical teams, and then
ambulances were organized to ship the students off to hospitals
near the square.

The best slogan I came across this day was on a banner held up by
an old intellectual: 'After kneeling for 32 years, it is time to
stand up and get moving' (
guile sanshier nianle, qilai huodong huodong
). The reference was to the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1957. If
you spoke to older people in the marches or on the sidelines,
after expressing the usual concern for the students and their
cause, they would often say they were there to show their
opposition to an insensitive government (
wuqingde zhengfu
), much as some people of their generation had enthusiastically
spoken out thirty years earlier.

On Tuesday, 16 May, having heard that the intellectuals of the
capital would be publishing a proclamation at Beijing University
in the afternoon, I went out there with a journalist friend.
There was great confusion as to where the proclamation would be
read. The time for it was changed, hardly anyone we met - Chinese
or not - seemed to know what was going on, and we retired for a
while to the apartment of the dissident scientists Fang Lizhi and
Li Shuxian. Fang was busy working out the details of a libel suit
he was preparing against He Dongchang, the head of the State
Education Commission, who had claimed that Fang advocated the
dissolution of China. (15) Both Fang and Li had been at pains to
keep a distance from the student movement, and Li was outraged at
the rumours being spread about her supposed connections with the
Beijing University student leader Wang Dan. We then talked about
the meeting between Deng Xiaoping and Gorbachev which had taken
place that morning. Fang was of the opinion that the only way
things could work out for the best would be if Deng told
Gorbachev that this would be his last official act and that he
would be retiring from politics entirely, after which he could go
on a trip around the world or indulge in some other form of
harmless diversion. No one present thought there was much chance
of Deng making such a statement.

Later in the afternoon, at about 4, we returned to the university
and found the official proclamation of the 'May 16 Declaration'
taking place at the Sanjiaodi (triangular area at Beijing
University, the locus of many poster campaigns). The novelist
Zheng Yi and the literary critic and novelist Li Tuo were acting
as masters of ceremonies, and Bao Zunxin (an historian at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and co-editor of the 'Towards
the Future' book series) was among a number of speakers. Bao was
particularly hysterical in his presentation, which was supposed
to represent the prominent reformist intellectuals Liu Zaifu, Yan
Jiaqi and Li Zehou as well. A representative of the
hunger-striking students, who had especially rushed back from the
square, was also there. The declaration was written up like a
dazibao
and pasted on a dormitory entrance with a massive list of
signatures appended to it. A call was issued for a massive
city-wide demonstration the next day. The significance of
choosing Beijing University, the symbolic and often real centre
of intellectual ferment throughout the 20th century, for this
official proclamation of the rebellion of the intellectuals was
obvious, and people crowded around or were perched on every
possible vantage point. Foreign television crews and journalists
were given privileged access.

I returned to Langlang's courtyard and heard that Yan Mingfu, the
spokesman for the 'reform' faction of the Party leadership, had
been to see the students and had even tearfully offered himself
up as a hostage if they didn't believe him when he said that
dialogue would continue. By this time some student leaders,
envoys of government offices, the intellectual groups and other
disparate individuals would be appearing in the courtyard around
the clock to rest, drink tea, chat and smoke. Langlang said they
frequented this convenient 'pit stop' as it was close to the
square, and he had been happy to extend hospitality to all
parties. The student leaders I met there, all in their early
twenties, were usually exhausted and always discussing new
strategies. While at times they barely deigned to speak to other
Chinese I was with, they perked up the moment a foreigner opened
his or her mouth. Even as early as Tuesday, however, things were
beyond the control of any individual or small group and much of
the talk centred on the dilemma facing both the students and the
government. The overwhelming support of the public had surprised
everyone, making the situation all the more dangerous. We
discussed the need, at least, for the students to publish details
of the massive donations they were receiving and to do something
about the deteriorating hygiene situation in the square - it was
filthy and stank of urine and a concert of other odours, which
wafted down Chang'an Avenue on the hot air. These problems were
recognized, but dismissed as unimportant; the spirit of the
'movement' (
yundong
) was everything.

Back on the square, by the end of the day the sound of ambulance
sirens formed a nearly constant clamour. While the Beijing
municipal government subsequently claimed to have provided both
medical personnel and ambulances for the treatment of the
students, (16) according to a number of Chinese sources at the
time, both forms of medical assistance were voluntary, and part
of the rebellion against the government. The ambulance run added
an eerie and frantic element to the protests. The students
organized their own traffic control so as to keep corridors open
for the ready access of the ambulances on the eastern side of the
square and along Chang'an Avenue. So there was a thread of open
space within the masses of milling people, through which
ambulances rushed with sirens screaming and lights flashing,
carrying stricken hunger strikers to and from the square in what
was soon a twenty-four hour lifeline. Over the next few nights
the oppressive heat, the shrill cry of the ambulances rushing
throughout the city and the increasing fear that some of the
students could die (with unpredictable consequences for public
order and the government) made sleep virtually impossible. If you
were awake, no matter what hour of the day or night, sooner or
later you ended up walking to the square again and yet again.

Despite the drama represented by the ambulances and frantic
medical teams, people still sauntered to the square after dinner
for a stroll. Although there was much drama at the base of the
Monument to the People's Heroes, most people couldn't get
anywhere near the hunger strikers, although curiosity led to
crowds pressing up close to the cordoned area. They chatted with
the student stewards, looked out for speech-makers, and at the
first hint of excitement in another part of the square would rush
off, trampling over broken bottles and the accumulated filth of
the past few days. There were clutches of sleeping students all
about the square and in the underground walkways to Tiananmen
Gate. Small carts laden with bread and soft drinks were
positioned all around the square, their owners generally selling
their wares for a range of prices: students paid the normal
amount, locals a higher one and foreigners the highest levy of
all.

* * *

On Wednesday, 17 May, Zhao Ziyang issued a written statement
to the striking students on behalf of the Standing Committee of
the Politburo. The statement affirmed the patriotic intentions of
the students and promised there would be no reprisals (
jue buhui 'qiuhou suanzhang'
) against them. (17) Although Zhao called for an end to the
hunger strike, to my mind his statement only encouraged the
campaign of disobedience.

Speculation was rife among my friends as to the nature of the
government's actions over the weeks since Hu Yaobang's death.
Virtually every move by the authorities had served as a stimulus
to further demonstrations. Dai Qing had commented early on when
speaking to the hunger-striking students and pleading with them
to quit the square, that the government was incapable of
responding quickly and rationally to emergency situations and
that excessive provocation was dangerous in that it would
inevitably lead to over-reactions. As one of the few people
openly involved in the movement who also understood the inner
workings of the Party leaders, Dai's views proved more perceptive
than any of the other intellectuals who offered the students
advice.

There was constant talk among these politicized intellectuals of
the split among the leaders and Zhao's desperate attempts to use
the movement to save his own political career. One (possibly
apocryphal) story current by the end of the week was that Zhao
had spoken to Deng and declared he had the support of millions of
people. Deng supposedly responded that he had the support of the
army and Zhao therefore had nothing.

That morning I went to visit two Buddhist monasteries in the west
of the city, passing by the quarry in Shijingshan which a fellow
passenger said was used for executions. Our car was stopped there
by police and identification papers had to be produced. They were
scrutinized with great care, as were those of other vehicles at
this unmarked check point. Although there was no sign of police
in the centre of the city, vigilance in the suburbs had hardly
slackened.

We returned to the outskirts of the city for lunch and then, our
way being blocked by demonstrators at Muxudi, were forced to walk
the seven kilometres into the city along Chang'an Avenue. It took
about three hours, as the avenue was packed with demonstrators
from all walks of life out to support the students. The papers
later said that over a million people had joined in.

We noticed kindergarten children on the sides of the street at
East Muxudi all flashing the V sign and squeaking 'Overthrow
bureaucratic speculators!' (
Dadao guandao!
) and 'Support the students!' (
Shengyuan xuesheng!
), with their teachers standing by indulgently and prompting them
when the chorus slackened. Middle-school students with their
school banners (for use in sports carnivals) were also out in
force, and groups of uniformed students from the public security
and customs schools also appeared, much to the delight of
onlookers and other demonstrators, who by Xidan formed a massive
crowd that inched forward only very slowly.

After Zhao's statement to Gorbachev the day before and with the
media giving such prominence to the demonstrations, it looked
like most work units in Beijing had dispatched a contingent to
march. These were not masses of anonymous demonstrators, but
well-labelled groups acting in an orderly (although not
regimented) fashion.

By now foreigners seemed, for once, to be treated with relative
indifference. Although the foreign media enjoyed a privileged
place in the whole process, others were treated by people in the
street as equals. Smiles were exchanged and friendly greetings.
In the fifteen years I had been travelling to Beijing, this was
the first time that you could feel the city to be enjoying a
period of spontaneous self-confidence and pride. Of course,
foreigners were often stopped and asked to express wholehearted
support for the students' cause (any disagreement was not well
received) and repeatedly told 'The Chinese are really something,
eh!' (
Zhongguoren zhen xing, dui budui?
). There was such an awareness of the need not to cause
disturbances that people were overtly polite and restrained. Even
the city's petty thieves got into the spirit of things, and
pickpockets were said to have gone on strike out of sympathy for
the students.

On the morning of Thursday, 18 May, I went to the square with a
friend to see the water strikers (hunger strikers who were
refusing water as well as food). They had begun their water
strike on Tuesday after Chai Ling and others had made a
theatrical but half-hearted attempt at self-immolation. According
to one of the water strikers, they were offended by Chai's
hysteria and decided to go on their water strike instead. The
Autonomous Students' Union did not agree to it, but the water
strikers isolated themselves from the other students, setting up
camp on Chang'an Avenue on the northern side of the Great Hall of
the People. The twelve strikers were from the Central Drama
Academy and the site of their strike certainly played on
theatricality. (18)

They had initially joined the other hunger strikers on Saturday,
having prepared for it by printing T-shirts in black and red with
the name of their school, and 'China's 1989 Democracy Tide' on
the top. (19) On the Tuesday, as they began their water strike, a
large circle had been cordoned off by student stewards holding
ropes as a flimsy barrier. At times the stewards were seated, but
when the pressure of the crowds became too great they would
stand, asking the crowds to keep their distance and politely
shoving them on their way. By the time I got there the twelve
water strikers were already in a parked bus (previously they had
been lying on the ground but all the strikers had been
transferred to buses when it began raining). The bus's siding
recorded the details of the strike: the number of participants,
the number of hours they had gone without food and the period
they had been without water. It was like a score-board and the
figures were constantly updated in black ink, adding to the drama
of the scene. To the northern side of the bus, facing Chang'an
Avenue and therefore on view to the majority of passing
demonstrators, was a low table on which offerings of flowers were
placed. Behind the bus was a triptich of banners. The left panel
was a crudely painted white figure on a red background with its
arms in the air and the word '
nahan
', or scream of frustration, the title of Lu Xun's first
collection of fiction. In the centre the words 'save them' (
jiu ren
) was written in black on white, and on the right a sketch of a
naked woman kneeling and crying to heaven was drawn in blue on a
yellow banner. (20)

The scene resembled something of a charmed circle, or a grisly
mandala, or even an altar. There was something mildly obscene and
morbid about it all.

At the end of April students preparing to go off on
demonstrations had written their last testaments. While there was
no doubt that there was danger then, there was also a constant
element of bravado and an unsettling eagerness for martyrdom. A
favourite banner, touted by some young people on a bicycle cart
that appeared every day, was spattered with red and read simply
'Fight to the death!' (
sike
! literally, 'crack open our heads and die!'). Ever since mention
had been made of self-immolation at the beginning of the hunger
strike, I had heard people talking about blood and death. (21)

The water strikers' declarations spoke of death with lines like:
'We use the strength of death to fight for life', and 'Death
awaits the broadest, eternal response'. (22) Although they
claimed they were too young to wish for death, the symbols of the
protest became increasingly sanguine.

Some of the strikers even wrote oaths in blood, recalling
unintentionally the way Chinese Buddhist monks once copied sutras
in blood when pledges were made. It also recalled the May 4
Incident when students similarly wrote blood pledges; perhaps
there was an element of conscious emulation of this in 1989. It
was not long before placards with gruesome blood markings
appeared. The lighting towers on either side of the square were
occupied by students who hung red-spattered banners with the word
'sacrifice' (
canlie
) on them. (23) Others wore T-shirts patterned with red, possibly
blood, and although the mudra of the movement was the 'V' for
victory sign, the red and white headbands worn by the students
bespoke rather of a suicidal kamikaze spirit. (Such headbands,
incidentally, are not part of Chinese tradition; they were
borrowed by the students from Japanese samurai movies and
Japanese student demonstrations.) These young people who had
pledged themselves to death for the sake of a cause were now
caught up in a romantic assignation with death that was tied to
honour and self-esteem. It was reminiscent of that 'splendid
death' (
rippa na shi
) pursued by the Japanese
shimp&ucirc
pilots. (24)

To be sure, there was a constant fear that someone might die from
the water strike, but I also sensed a gruesome desire to see real
sacrifice for the cause. The appearance of the water strikers'
altar only confirmed this. As the space was a circle it
immediately encouraged a type of circumambulation. Crowds of
observers and delegations edged their way around it. People often
burst into tears as they moved past the young water strikers
huddled in the seats of the bus, sometimes raising their heads or
flashing a V sign. Every movement within the bus would result in
anxious comments among the slowly flowing crowd, then shouts of
'We support you!' and so on, appeals for silence, more tears and
then further cries of support. The stewards tried to keep
people's voices subdued, thereby creating a solemn and at times
funereal atmosphere around this island of sacrifice, an isolated
quiet spot in what otherwise was a scene of constant commotion,
drama and festivity along the avenue. Apart from two central
traffic lanes that were kept open for ambulances transporting
their cargoes of hunger strikers to and from the hospitals, the
avenue was flooded with people.

Initially the twelve water strikers had refused all medical
attention, but when they began fainting on the Wednesday, they
were forced to have treatment either on the square or in the
Beijing Municipal Emergency Clinic at Hepingmen. According to
those I spoke to, they had gone into the strike in a tragic,
virtually suicidal mood. The images of the death of heroes, the
knights-errant of Jin Yong's martial arts novels, and
self-sacrificing youth were uppermost in their minds. For one of
them at least, it was a meaningful act of rebellion and freedom,
a way of getting back at an insensitive and shameless government.
The protest was particularly powerful in that it used the symbols
and emotions created by years of government propaganda to oppose
the government itself. (25) What made the strike even more
unsettling was that both hunger strikers and water strikers would
faint and then be revived (
qiangjiu
) by the medical teams with glucose and water injections, only to
come back to the square to continue the strike.

Towards mid-day a friend and I came across a clutch of animated
figures gathered at the entrance of the Workers' Cultural Palace
on the northeast corner of Tiananmen. It was a confused meeting
of intellectuals, although their leaders maintained an air of
great self-importance. One of them told me quite earnestly that
it was obvious that the Party leadership was impotent in the face
of the mass protests, and they were discussing how to set up a
provisional government. Since the workers were now coming out in
mass support of the students, it was just a matter of time before
the government collapsed out of sheer incompetence, he argued.
Thus, he said, it was high time that the intellectuals take their
rightful place at the head of the movement.

I had witnessed these people appear and disappear repeatedly over
the previous days with the ebb and flow of the movement. (26) I
suggested to this cocky literary critic that the present Chinese
government was still quite intact behind the walls of
Zhongnanhai, and it was a little presumptuous to assume it was
incapable of dealing with the situation.

That afternoon on TV I saw
Li Peng's meeting with
student leaders in the Great Hall of the People
. Wuer Kaixi's performance was remarkable. Li's bad temper was
reflected in his tone of voice and his beating of the
antimacassars of his chair with his pudgy hands. Yan Mingfu
summed up the dialogue at the end when he admitted that it was
merely a 'meeting with the leaders' (
jianmian
). It amused and infuriated the people I had contact with.

Late that night, Hou Dejian appeared in his Russian sedan. It was
now too dangerous to drive onto the streets in his Mercedes Benz;
the government had hidden their fleets presumably to prevent
attacks on them by outraged demonstrators. We went off to the
hotpot restaurant again. The owner, a self-made entrepreneur, was
now extremely critical of the students. He said any government
backlash would, in the end, hurt entrepreneurs more than anyone
else. After all, he argued, the students might be punished, but
the state had paid for their education and would use them one way
or the other. Entrepreneurs, however, were expendable. Successful
and wealthy entrepreneurs, he remarked, were too street-wise to
get deeply involved in the protests. It was the small-time
operators, the rowdies, who were most energetic in providing
funds, food, water and support. They had been driven to
desperation by government taxes and bureaucracy; their protest
was a form of revenge.

After the meal we drove to the square at about 2 am. The place
stank, and there were piles of filth, decaying food, plastic and
glass containers and all types of rubbish everywhere, with
students huddled asleep all around the monument. Parents who had
come to the square with their children had let them freely
urinate around the place, and after some days of this large parts
of the plaza emanated a foul odour. At night, as the paving
stones of the square cooled, the heat in the air built up like a
malodorous layer at about head level. By now many of the students
in the area were from outside Beijing, and their camps were
identified by banners with the names of their universities, each
with what looked like their own bit of 'turf' marked out.

Hou was recognized by students on the eastern flank of the
monument and near the 'Maosoleum'. They wanted his signature and
his verbal approval of the demonstrations. They all addressed him
as 'Mr Hou'. He tried to be non-committal. In his comments to me
he expressed despair of the whole business. The Chinese, he said,
were like a great tribe of crabs thrown together in a bottle.
Every move they made led to disorder and possibly self-inflicted
injury. The only solution was if the crab population was markedly
reduced. But that was impossible, so the confused struggle would
go on. In the present situation an impasse had been reached, and
since neither side would give in there inevitably would be an
escalation of conflict and then brutal revenge. The stinking
vista made his reflections seem all the more dispiriting.

* * *

On the afternoon of Friday 19 May, an Australian official had
met with Li Peng. Li had been quite agitated and talked about the
impossible traffic situation. This was reported in the evening
news. We heard that an important government announcement was
about to be made, and based on the general practice of the
Cultural Revolution thought it would be broadcast at 8 pm. We
tried to catch it at a friend's place but there was nothing but a
song and dance routine on the screen. I returned to the square.
It was about 10 pm and groups were scattered in and around the
square reading out a 'Six Point Announcement' that pro-Zhao
groups had just distributed as a Beijing University pamphlet. It
was about the fall of Zhao and the arrival of the army. At the
entrance to the Workers' Cultural Palace on the eastern side of
Tiananmen Gate, the announcement was being read out repeatedly by
people standing in the eastern reviewing stand. Large crowds were
standing listening. It was a grim scene. Many of the people
around me were crying as a speaker declared that the brutal
Tiananmen Incident of 1976 was about to be re-enacted.

Later that evening there was a TV broadcast of speeches by Li
Peng and Yang Shangkun. At the square Li and Yang's speeches were
repeated throughout the night on the government loudspeakers. At
first they were hooted at, but soon they were ignored as people
awaited the approach of the troops.

What was remarkable about these speeches was that the
hunger-striking students had clearly called off their hunger
strike shortly before Li Peng and Yang Shangkun's speeches were
televised. The students' decision had already been announced on
TV, thus pre-empting the government's own broadcast. Although
there was a considerable delay in broadcasting their speeches
that night, Li and Yang were unable to make any immediate
response to the new situation: their speeches were directed at
the 'turmoil' created by the hunger-strikers, while in fact there
was now no hunger strike, and the possibility for dialogue and
negotiation had presented itself once more. Now, through their
threatening pronouncements of martial law, they had destroyed
that possibility.

Early in the morning groups of motorcyclists - mostly small-time
entrepreneurs - began constantly rushing east and west, reporting
on troop movements in a language reminiscent of PLA movies. In
fact, the language and style of student demonstrators in the
following days were much influenced, I've been told, by Liang
Bin's pre-Cultural Revolution novel,
Armed Working Team Behind Enemy Lines
(
Dihou wugongdui
), which is about guerrillas during the Anti-Japanese War. (27)
For the next several days the 'Flying Tigers' (
Feihudui
), as they were to be dubbed, a pack of dozens of motorcycles,
had the freedom of the streets and were welcomed throughout the
city, both day and night. One story had it that they even went to
Deng Xiaoping's residence in Di'anmen and tore around the place
all night just to annoy him.

Early on the morning of 20 May we heard that troops had been
isolated from all contact with civilians the day the hunger
strike began, cut off from television and newspapers and given
the
People's Daily
26 April editorial to study. They had been told various stories
why they were entering Beijing: to take part in a film, as a
military exercise, to crush the turmoil.

At about 6 am we went with some journalists to see the troops
stalled at Gongzhufen and Wukesong in the west. Students were
standing by the army trucks reading long screeds about their
movement and carrying out what could only be termed as
'ideological work' (
sixiang gongzuo
) on the troops. Watching the relentless presentation of the
argument to the prone and exhausted soldiers (while the students
had been tired out by weeks of demonstrations and the hunger
strike, the soldiers had been travelling for days to reach the
city) was like seeing a Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team of
yester-year going to work. Considering that this was happening
around the city with the support of tens of thousands of
citizens, it was extremely moving. As we drove back toward the
east, a number of army helicopters flew straight down Chang'an at
quite a low altitude. The initial reaction was of shock and fear.
By the time they came back, people were applauding and whistling.
I spoke to one policeman later in the day who said it would have
been great fun to get on a high-rise and shoot at them with his
hand pistol; he figured he would have been able to down at least
one.

Although for many people it had been a sleepless night, shortly
after the announcement that martial law would go into effect at
10 am, and following another fly-over by helicopters, people
flooded into the streets. The three government orders issued by
Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong were being broadcast repeatedly in the
square. One might have thought these were giving people ideas as
how best to annoy the government even further. (28) In Order One,
Article Three, for example, a ban was put on creating and
spreading rumours, link-ups, lecturing, disseminating circulars
and inciting public disorder. Immediately, students and other
individuals began giving public lectures on street corners
throughout the city, pamphlets on the state of affairs were
produced with increased energy, delegations were sent to units
including factories to call on public support for the students,
and everywhere people were encouraging a campaign of public
disobedience. The feeling in the Square was festive once more and
it seemed that the citizenry had declared martial law on the
government. There was a new sense of independence and relief
after the tension of the night. The sites of the old gates of the
city, torn down many years before, became the key points where
crowds would gather to prevent the entry of the army, regaining
their function as bastions in the defences of the city.

Out on the streets, foreign tourists were everywhere, taking
happy-snaps of what appeared to be nothing less than a city-wide
festival. It seems that the government had not made adequate
provision to warn the thousands of foreign tourists that,
according to Article Two of the Beijing People's Government Order
Two, it was now illegal for foreigners to 'get involved (
jieru
) in the activities of Chinese citizens which contravene martial
law'. This presumably meant it was illegal to observe and walk
with the tens of thousands of demonstrators, listen to speeches,
or talk to virtually anyone in the city. The ill-considered
nature of these orders was obvious. If anything, they only
encouraged civil disobedience and came as further proof to the
demonstrators and their supporters that the government was
incompetent, even impotent. The escalation of disobedience, while
exciting to participants, meant that the government felt
increasingly threatened, in turn resorting to increasingly clumsy
measures in dealing with the city.

The most striking posters of the morning were just inside
Jianguomen at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, an
organization which had given succour to many of the intellectual
supporters of the protest movement. One long banner on the fence
of the academy called on the government to take responsibility
for the situation and resign en masse. It also called for Wan Li
to head a caretaker government and to call an emergency session
of the National People's Congress.

That evening new rumours spread about the government taking
action. Small posters were stuck on road signs and lamp-posts
elucidating three points: 1) Beijing's jails had been emptied in
preparation for mass arrests; 2) Government leaders had
repeatedly said that they should be prepared to kill 200,000
people (
ershiwan
) so as to ensure twenty years (
ershinian
) of unity and stability; and 3) Orders had gone out to clear the
square and clean up the streets at 4 am the following morning.
The posters exhorted people to go to the square to keep the
troops out. People surged into the streets and many stayed there
till the early hours of the morning.

While the Chinese government had allowed the situation in the
square to develop to the point at which it felt it had little
choice but to impose martial law, the ineptitude of the
government's timing on 19-20 May had revealed quite starkly what
Dai Qing had talked about at the beginning of the hunger strike:
the inability of the authorities to react effectively to crisis.
Several friends with high-level connections told me that at no
time was this more clear than on the evening of 19 May.

They related that the Party, government and army meeting of that
evening was held in the western suburbs of Beijing, apparently at
the Xijiao Guest House. By the time the meeting was over, and
before the official broadcast, it was obvious to the leaders
present that the army would not be able to reach their positions
by the appointed time, or even to be able to clear the square by
the morning of 20 May. In fact, it was reported that the leaders
saw the troops stranded in the suburbs as they left the meeting,
but decided after some delay to go ahead with the broadcast
regardless. Compounding this, following the speeches, on the
morning of 20 May martial law was declared according to the
pre-arranged schedule, even though the enforcement troops were
still not in place in the city and the square remained occupied
by the demonstrators. By proceeding with this predetermined
schedule despite the absurdity of the actual situation, Li and
Yang made themselves a laughing-stock and incited public contempt
and protest in the following days.

Throughout the next few days a pattern emerged among the
protesters: mornings were spent asleep, followed by lunch, an
afternoon turn around the square, and discussion among people in
the streets. Then in the late afternoon a new series of rumours
would spread: some government ministries, provinces or military
regions were refusing to follow the government line, Wan Li was
in rebellion, Deng Xiaoping was dying, Li Xiannian had forced Li
Peng to resign, and so on. There would be consternated excitement
at the news that this was the night the army would move on the
city, and people would stream into the streets again. They were
there to support the students, to protect the city, and just to
be there.

The government's responses to the situation since the 26 April
People's Daily
editorial had at each turn only served to incite the
demonstrators, leading each time to further over-reactions by the
government and increased disobedience. This spiral of negative
responses had, by late May, presented the government with an
insoluble dilemma as to how to deal with the city. Within several
more days, they would desperately be resorting to deliberate
brutality to recover their power over the populace.

Endnotes

*This chapter has been written as part of the Tiananmen Square
Documentation Project of the Australian National University.

1 'Zhao Ziyang Holds a Discussion with Workers of the Capital'
(Zhao Ziyang tong shoudu gongren zuotan),
People's Daily
, 14 May 1989. On 15 May, the
People's Daily
reported Li Peng's visit to the Capital Steel Mill on the
morning of 13 May. On 16 May, the
People's Daily
carried a front page disclaimer that 70 thousand workers of the
Capital Steel Mill were on strike.
2 Zhang Langlang has written about all this in an essay, 'My Home
Is Next to Tiananmen Square' (Wo jia jiu zai Tiananmen pangbian),
The Nineties Monthly
(
Jiushi niandai
), July 1989, pp. 15-16. Langlang fled Beijing in late May to
avoid arrest.
3 Langlang, 'Communist Spy!?' (Gongdie!?),
The Nineties Monthly
, September 1989, pp. 13-14, where he comments on accusations
that he was and is a Communist agent because of his friendship
with the journalist Dai Qing (see below).
4 Hou Dejian tells me that on the night of 3-4 June, 'The
Internationale' and his own 'Decendants of the Dragon' were
repeatedly sung by students and citizens as they awaited the
troops. Hou modified his song slightly for the occasion. This new
version is given in translation in
New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Voices from Tiananmen Square
, edited by G. Barméand Linda Jaivin, (Times Books, New
York, forthcoming 1991). After the June Massacre, the authorities
attempted to use the lack-lustre 'There Would Be No New China
without the Communist Party' to rouse the nation in a chorus of
support, and friends attending army rallies said they had even
heard the Cultural Revolution 'anthem' 'Sailing on the Seas
Depends on the Helmsman'.
5 See 'Hu Qili and Others Have a Dialogue with Journalists in the
Capital' (Hu Qili deng tong shoudu xinwenjie duihua),
People's Daily
, 14 May 1989. Hu, Rui Xingwen, Yan Mingfu and Wang Renzhi met
with journalists at the
Xinhua News Agency
,
People's Daily
,
Guangming Daily
and
China Youth Daily
on 11 and 13 May. Hu Qili is reported to have said that press
reform was a matter of great urgency.
6 This is one of the expressions that was used constantly during
this period. Other such expressions - a sort of slogan-like short
hand that were used incessantly by the people I was in contact
with - were 'negate the 26 April [editorial]' (
fouding si erliu
), 'the Seven Points' (
qitiao
), 'dialogue' (
duihua
), then 'mediation' (
woxuan
), then 'the situation is critical' (
xingshi yanjun
), then after martial law 'mutiny' (
huabian
), 'smash military control' (
fensui junguan
), and 'the pseudo-government' (
wei zhengfu
), a term which became popular after 23 May. Others tell me that
by late May some people used a couplet to describe their future
fate: 'Those with a way out can go to Heaven, those without one
will end up being sent to Qinghai Province' (
you daode shang qingtian, wu daode xia Qinghai
). The reference to 'a way out' (
dao
) refers to student leaders and others with passports and visas.
On 4 June and for the few days after it, there was constant talk
among Chinese of 'the square awash in blood' (
xiexi guangchang
).
7 It is this background which may have also emboldened her to
write her extraordinary record of her confinement after the June
Massacre, 'My Imprisonment' (
Wode ruyu
), published in Hong Kong and Taipei following her release in May
1990.
8 Dai's efforts did, of course, fail. At one point she enlisted
the help of Langlang, who describes his experiences as the
mediator's mediator in 'Taking a Verbal Message to Tiananmen'
(Dao Tiananmen shao ge kouxin),
The Nineties Monthly
, 16 June 1989, pp. 72-73. Dai has also often been rumoured of as
being an operative for the Chinese Ministry of State Security and
this has influenced Langlang's reputation as well. See Langlang's
'Communist Spy!?', op.cit., pp. 13-14 and G. Barm&eacute,
'Enemy of the People',
Far Eastern Economic Review
, 10 August 1989, p. 29.
9 By 1 pm it was obvious the official welcome had been moved at
the last minute to the airport. It was extraordinary that the
leaders, quite aware that the students had no plans to quit the
square - although they had shifted camp to the History Museum to
allow room for the welcoming ceremony - hadn't made preparations
to relocate the ceremony that morning even though they knew that
the welcoming crowds would not be the usual well-behaved and
orchestrated groups Beijing normally lays on for visiting
dignitaries. It seemed even at the time that this was a way of
creating the maximum amount of embarrassment over the incident.
Throughout the protests it was painfully obvious that the
authorities had little understanding of the need for contingency
plans. Eventually we did catch sight of the in-coming motorcade
from the Jianguomen apartments as it moved north around the
ring-road.
10 'University Students Continue Their Hunger Strike and
Intellectuals Go to Tiananmen Square to Voice Their Support'
(Shoudu yi bufen gaoxiao xuesheng jixu jueshi, zhishijie renshi
dao Tiananmen Guangchang shengyuan),
People's Daily
, 16 May 1989.
11 The official Beijing municipal government version of events
notes that a group of a dozen or so people carrying a banner
reading 'Civilians Support Group' first appeared at 10 pm on
Sunday 14 May. See
An Account of the Suppression of the 1989 Peking Turmoil and
Counter-revolutionary Riot
(1989 Beijing zhizhi dongluan pingxi fangeming baoluan jishi),
edited by the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Office, Beijing
ribao, Beijing, 1989, p. 76. This book contains a highly detailed
and generally dispassionate account of the events of 1989.
Although marred by some serious inaccuracies, it is a useful
source arranged in the form of a diary.
12 See footnote 5 of this chapter. Also see Chen Xitong, 'A
Report on Bringing a Halt to Turmoil and Suppressing the
Counter-revolutionary Disturbance' (Guanyu zhizhi dongluan he
pingxi fangeming baoluande qingkuang baogao),
People's Daily
, 7 July 1989. Chen terms the role of the media during the hunger
strike week as being 'murderous propaganda (
sharen yulun
).
13 Fang had previously commented to a friend that what the
petition movement of the first months of the year had achieved
was 'to use democracy [or the increasing number of signatories]
to put pressure on dictatorship' (
yi minzhu ya ducai
).
14 See
The Beijing Student Movement, Witness to History
(Beijing xueyun: Lishide jianzheng), Xingdao chubanshe, Hong
Kong, 1989, p. 27 for a picture of Wuerkaixi with his name on his
shirt. He is shown signing a shirt for an autograph hunter.
Harrison E. Salisbury gets the impression on 3 June that the
reason he attracted so many students eager for his autograph was
because they recognized him as the author of
The Long March
, which he claims, according to a poll among Chinese university
students, was the 'the best book published in the last ten
years'. See
Tiananmen Diary: Thirteen Days in June
(Unwin Paperbacks, London, 1989), p. 35. In fact, many other
foreigners with no claim to fame were similarly mobbed.
15 Fang had spoken about China splitting up in an interview with
the Hong Kong journalist Lee Yee earlier in the year. He observed
that China was heading for dissolution, but had not advocated
that China break up as He Dongchang suggested. See Lee Yee's
interview with Fang, 'Patriotism Shouldn't Be Paramount'
(Aiguozhuyi bu ying fang zai diyi wei),
The Nineties Monthly
, January 1989, p. 97, and He's comments in the 'dialogue' with
student representatives printed in
People's Daily
, 30 April 1989.
16 See Chen Xitong's report and
An Account of the Suppression of the 1989 Peking Turmoil and
Counter-revolutionary Riot
, op.cit., p.79 ff.
17 'Zhao Ziyang Issues a Written Statement' (Zhao Ziyang fabiao
shumian tanhua),
People's Daily
, 17 May 1989.
18 Another group of water strikers from the Institute of
Political Science and Law camped outside Zhongnanhai, ironically
under an old slogan board in the wall which reads 'Long Live the
Invincible Thought of Mao Zedong!'.
19 See Asiaweek's
Xianchang baodao
, Asiaweek, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 50; and David and Peter Turnley's
Beijing Spring
(Asia 2000, Hong Kong, 1989), p. 81.
20 For a clear picture of these banners, see
Selected Source Documents from the Chinese Democracy
Movement
, vol. I, (Zhongguo minyun yuanshi ziliao jingxuan I), Shiyue
pinglun chubanshe, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 52. According to one of
the strikers, the banners were produced by students of the
Properties Department of the Central Drama Academy.
21 See my 'Confession, Redemption and Death: Liu Xiaobo and the
Protest Movement of 1989' in George Hicks (ed.),
The Broken Mirror: China After Tiananmen
(Longmans, London, 1990).
22 From the pledge of the Beijing University Students, printed in
the 13 May extra of
Xinwen daobao
and reprinted in
Selected Source Documents from the Chinese Democracy
Movement
, vol. I, op.cit., p. 86.
23 The word originally meant 'extreme cold'; it later took on the
meaning of pathetic or helpless as well.
24 See Ivan Morris,
The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of
Japan
(Noonday Press, New York, 1988), pp. 278-334, especially pp.
289, 294. Morris quotes a haiku by one 22-year-old pilot: 'If
only we might fall/Like cherry blossoms in the Spring - /So pure
and radiant!'.
25 Elsewhere I have spoken of this as the 'subversion of
symbols'. See 'Blood offering',
Far Eastern Economic Review
, 22 June 1989, p. 38.
26 Yuan Zhiming, co-author of 'River Elegy' and one of the
intellectual activists, has discussed the rather ignominious role
played by 'high level intellectuals' (
gaoji zhishifenzi
) in his essay 'Black Hands and Standard-bearers' (Heishou yu
qishou),
Press Freedom Herald
(Xinwen ziyou daobao), no. 22, 20 January 1990.
27 A cartoon book version of the novel was extremely popular with
children in the 1970s, and a television adaptation made something
of a sensation a few years ago.
28 See Chen Xitong, 'Orders of the People's Government of Beijing
Municipality' (Beijingshi renmin zhengfu ling),
People's Daily
, 21 May 1989.